The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-05-08
AMATEUR pHoroaRApHY.
The Bicycle, Not the Tripod, Camera IS
All the Go.

ALI inc 20.
New YORK, May The Girls Camera
Club has had a field day in Central Park
this week. There was n rendezvous at the
Fifty ninth street entrance and then
capacity for infinite frolic drove through
the gateway in couple of buggies, followed
by red cheeks and flying ribbons on a
quartette of horses, while viyacious energy
on two or three tricycles brought up the
rear.
The New York girl Is going into amateur
photography with considerable enthusiasm
this spring, and the Camera Club is the first
fruits OF her zeal. She has not lifted the
implements of the bewitching art upon the
pedestal of craze, but they are coming TO
hold an altogether respectable place in the
ranks OF her whlms. The Camera Club
is a devoted body and on the morning in
question had a business-like programme laid
down. A series of eight exposures" half
of them studies of subjects agreed upon be-
forehand and half of them detective sketches
snatched ON the spur of the moment from
the moving humanity around, were to be
submitted in competition for the honors of
the day. Down by the lake you might have
come upon the personified mischief of the
party lying in wait for q pair of unwaTy
spring lovers in boat, and taking chance
shot at rolypoly baby tumbling on the
grass, to pass away the time. Up in the
antiquarian region by Revolutionary forts
that still mark one chain of the city's de
lenses, you might have recognized a couple
moro intent on grouping and composition
and bribing trio of roll cking small bows
to lend human interest in the foreground of
the view. In the neighborhood of the
menagerie the elephant chained by one foot
posed as he munched peanut and the bears,
pit and the eagles, cage afforded opportunities
for glimpses Of brute and human nature not
to be lost by such an eager band.
The number of women among the amateur
photographers of the city is not large as vet,
but it is growing daily, and the sex feminine
has some good work to show as the results
of its ventures in this field The newspaper
correspondent seized upon the dry plate
and the handy little detective camera about
as quickly as anybody, and some half dozen
women journalists about New York find in
the rage for illustrated letters abundant call
for the exercise of their skill Women artists
in common with their brothers of the craft
owe no little help to the sun picture.
Women who used to try to sketch and
couldn't are given up that waste of time,
having found such satisfactory substitute
for preserving travel and vacation SOU
veniIs.
Mrs j. Wells Champney, wife of the artist,
and another of that bright book, Three
VaSsar Girls is among the most enthusiast
tic of the New York Photographic guild.
She is blessed with good subjects IN a couple
of attractive little folk, and keeps progress
sive record of their growth, their doings
and almost of their sayings, catching them
in the latest bit of roguery in unconscious
childish attitudes Mr. Constable, of the
shopping house of Arnold, Constable & Co.,
spends all of his avaible leisure in photo
graphy, and his wife is quite as devoted
and rather more Skillful than he. The
Marquise de Mores, who used to be Miss
Hutton, and is now the wife of the Marquis
of cowboy fame, has done some of the clev-
crest work, [ suppose, of any New York
amateur. Spirited bits on jerome avenue,
when the hoTsemen are speeding their trot-
tiers, are the subjects she takes to most kindly,
and from her seat in her phaeton she has
made collection of studies of the horse in
motion that it would be hard to duplicate
or surpass. Ranch life in Dakota has given
her another opportunity, and being dar-
ing rider she has utilized her chances to
perpetuate the widest of wild West hunting
scenes.
Nine Alice lie Plongeon, whose work
with her husband, August lie Plongeon, in
Yucatan, has made her known in archeologi-
cal fields is an amatur of no mean skill.
She uses wet colodion plates-a task that
back from Mexico pictures of the relics of
the cities of the Mayas that are serving as
data for study Of the lost civilization of
those aborigines Alice Stone Blackwell,
Lucy Stones daughter and junior editor of
the WOmGR'S Journal, Boston, has gone
into photography for recreation pure and
simple, as many busy women do There
were numbers of good things shown by
women at the first annual exhibition of the
ha
Ortgies gallery, New York, last month,
among them the work of Mrs Robert W.
De Forrest perhaps carrying off the palm.
WHAT Is MAKING WOMEN PHOTOGRAPHERS.
just as it was the dry plate that started
the immense development of amateur photo
graphy, so it is the perfection of the smaller
and more easily portable cameras that is
bringing the women into the field. The
photographer of old, with his black cloth,
his blacker dark room, his mysterious toy
ing with unknown, and to mortalS of q com
moner stamps unknowable chemicals, was
an awesome being from whom the last few
years have ruthlessly torn off the veil. The
substitution for the wet collodion plate,
which required technical knowledge and
special skill in its preparation, of the gelatine
film spread over the glass mouths before it
is wanted, ready sensitized ana packed for
transportation to the ends of the globe
reyolutionized the business for professional
and amateur. SO far as outdoor photography
is concerned the veriest bungler, if he has
artistic instinct enough TO choose a pictur-
able scene, can make the exposure, develop
his plate and print off the views with the
instruction to be given in single afternoon.
The camera has become a plaything, aud
one Of the most bewitching and satisfactory
Of the toys that grown up-people affect.
The tripod camera Is hardly used by
women at all The bicycle camera that
screws on a tricycle. equally well, and that,
without any extra impeachment in the way
of luggage, gives one instantaneous views of
al afternoons outing with barely the trouble
of pulling up to catch them, is coming to be
favorite with women who affect the
wheel. The tiniest of all cameras which slips
inside the clothing, the lens acting as dress
or vest button, is carried by number of
women about the city streets The photo
graphic apparatus being completely hidden,
piquant life and character sketches are
picked up as you demurely pass your I'M
conscious fellow-beings at fifteen feet range.
1t is the latest form of the detective
camera--that which counterfeits a neat
little hand satchel in appearance-that is
the usual favorite just now, however, with
women as with men. The machine can be
had scarcely larger than the usual handlter-
chief receptacle the size of the plate it
carries being much less of an object than it
used I'd be since the recent perfection of tho
enlargement processes by permanent bro
mide prints. For tourists and in all cases
10 f,hipof c,,,aI laf.